Revised 5/03 3. Candidates' dossiers must be submitted to the Faculty Evaluation Committee
(FEC) no later than August 15th, and to the Promotion Committee no later
than September 1. (See Department Bylaws for a description of the composition
and function of the FEC.) A candidate has the responsibility to consult
with the Department Chairperson, promotion committees or any other appropriate
person regarding the content and preparation of the dossier. It is the
responsibility of each faculty member who desires to be considered for
promotion or tenure in a given year to initiate the process by notifying
the Chairperson by March 15. In the candidate's dossier, the FEC will specify the number of potential reviewers who were presented to the candidate, and the number of these potential reviewers to whom the candidate objected, including the bases for these objections. The candidate will be shown this description and will be allowed to attach additional comments. If a reviewer (or reviewers) is selected despite a candidate's objections, the FEC will specify, in the dossier, the rationale for the selection. In the case of those promotion-review committees that are reviewing potential promotees for the second time, it is desirable to select some reviewers who were not contacted the first time. Some of the original reviewers might receive requests for a second review. For the second review, only the second set of letters will be included in the candidate's dossier. c. Reporting of recommendation The Promotion Committee will provide a written statement of its recommendations and decisions. This statement will indicate the numerical vote, describe the committee's composition, and explain the reasons for the decision. It will be transmitted in writing to the candidate and to other individuals and committees reviewing the dossier. The copy to the candidate will not include mention of the identity of the outside reviewers. Signed minority opinions will be forwarded as appendices to the committee's recommendations. A simple majority vote is required for a positive recommendation. The recommendations of the Promotion Committee shall be forwarded to the Department Chair, who will review the evidence submitted by the candidate, the report of the committee, the stated criteria, and make a recommendation supporting or failing to support the candidacy. The Chairperson will explain, in writing, her or his recommendation to the candidate and to the department committee. d. Forwarding procedures If the Department Promotion Committee and Chairperson agree in recommending promotion, or if either or both recommend against promotion but the candidate chooses not to withdraw it, the application will go forward to the College committee and the Dean, together with the committee's and the Chairperson's recommendations. e. Appeal procedures If the candidate wishes to appeal the departmental decision or Chairperson recommendation, the candidate may request a reconsideration meeting--with the Promotion Committee and/or with the Chairperson. At the meeting(s) the candidate may present additional material, orally and in written form. At the conclusion of the meeting a final vote will be taken, or a final recommendation made. Request for a reconsideration meeting must be made within five working days after receiving notification of the departmental action/Chairperson recommendation and reasons. The Promotion Committee Chairperson and/or the Department Chair (depending on the audience of the appeal) should document in writing that a reconsideration meeting occurred and the nature of the information reviewed. The candidate is also free to include in the dossier a letter documenting the grounds for a reconsideration meeting. If the Department or Chairperson decides to change its/his or her evaluation after such a reconsideration meeting, then both the original and the revised letter will be included in the dossier. If the Department or Chairperson decides to maintain its/his or her evaluation after the reconsideration meeting, then the Department or Chairperson should document in writing the reason for the maintenance of the original recommendation. 2. For promotion to full professor a. Constitution of the Promotion Committee The Promotion Committee will consist of all tenured full professors. The Associate Chair or a tenured full professor who also serves on the department's FEC will serve as chairperson. b. Use of outside evaluators. (See I,B,2,b, p.2) Whenever possible, reviewers who evaluated a candidate for promotion to associate professor should not be used to evaluate that candidate for promotion to full professor. However, it is acknowledged that in some research areas, reselection of reviewers is unavoidable and occasionally desirable. c. Reporting of recommendation (See I,B,2,c, p.2) d. Forwarding procedures (See I,B,2,d, p.3) e. Appeal procedures (See I,B,2,e, p.3) 3. Recommendation for tenure without promotion Whenever a person has been hired at the rank of associate professor or full professor without tenure the procedures for evaluating that individual for tenured status will be identical with the procedures used when an assistant professor is being considered for associate professor or when an associate professor is being considered for full professor depending upon the rank of the person applying for tenure. 4. Continuing non-tenure track appointments Continuing non-tenure track faculty are eligible for promotion in rank. The same criteria and procedures apply to promotion of continuing non-tenure track faculty that apply to tenure-track faculty. While the administered workload agreement is relevant to promotion in rank of all full-time faculty, it is particularly relevant to the promotion of continuing non-tenure track faculty given the idiosyncratic workload agreements that may pertain to these individuals. C. Time schedule March 15 - Faculty member should notify the Chairperson of her or his intention to be considered for promotion and/or tenure. April 1 - FEC notified by Chair. FEC chooses a relevant Promotion Committee Chair. June 1 - Requests for letters of evaluation sent to potential reviewers. August 15 - Dossier to the FEC. September 1 - Dossier to Promotion Committee and Chairperson. October 1 - Promotion Committee’s recommendation sent to Department Chair October 15 - Department's and Chair's recommendations to the College committee and Dean. When a faculty member is considered for promotion, his or her contributions in four major areas are considered: a. The contribution to Scholarship in the candidate's area. b. The contribution to Teaching. c. The contribution to Service. d. The recognition in, and impact upon, the field. A favorable decision requires excellence in scholarship, evidence of high quality teaching, evidence that the candidate is developing a national reputation in the field and a service contribution consistent with good department citizenship. A. For promotion to and tenuring of associate professor 1. Scholarship Excellence in research will be judged on the basis of the quality and number of published books and papers, the conduct of sponsored research, the number of papers delivered at professional meetings and the amount of responsibility for evaluation of papers and grant applications assumed by the candidate. Within these four classes of professional activity some qualitative distinctions will be made. Publications are considered in two distinct categories; those that provide strong evidence of an individual's research competence and those of lesser importance. Books, book chapters, research reviews, and refereed journal articles are considered substantive evidence of research competence. Strictly editorial work, technical reports, and non-refereed papers will be given less weight. Evidence of a programmatic quality to the research is of primary importance. Given two dossiers with the same number of papers, even if each individual paper is of high quality, the dossier in which the work is clearly striving towards some unified goal, and evidences the conduct of a program of related research projects, is the more preferred. It is expected that the published work will provide evidence that the candidate is already becoming a highly visible scholar in the area of specialization, with the expectation that he or she will indeed become a leading scholar in the field in future years. What is important is not so much the volume of published work as its excellence, both in terms of its scientific soundness and its imaginativeness and contribution to the field. The research grants submitted and grants awarded to a candidate are additional and important factors in consideration for promotion and tenure. They provide an external evaluation of the candidate's research plans and attest to the programmatic nature of the research. Faculty are expected to pursue external funding for their research aggressively. Failure to systematically submit proposals for external funding will significantly weaken an application for promotion. The number of papers presented at professional meetings and invited addresses at other institutions provide a third basis for faculty evaluation. A fourth, and somewhat less important basis for evaluation of research competence is the candidate's work as a referee for scholarly journals and grant applications. The quality of the journal for which the candidate evaluates will be considered in the judgment of this aspect of professional work as will the level of responsibility. 2. Teaching It is recognized that no approach to evaluating teaching effectiveness is without fault, and faculty are encouraged, therefore, to gather all information bearing on their teaching effectiveness for inclusion in their dossier. Tangible evidence of teaching effectiveness is provided by undergraduate and graduate course evaluations, and the number and quality (outcome) of graduate and undergraduate students advised in research by the candidate. This includes participation on thesis and dissertation committees, helping students with research design, statistical problems, number of undergraduate honors theses supervised to completion, evidence that graduate students are fulfilling their requirements in a timely manner and other such efforts. Innovative approaches to teaching, developing and revising courses and curricula, and the faculty member's contribution to the educational programs of the Department (e.g., new or revised courses) will also be considered in faculty evaluation for promotion and tenure. It is the responsibility of the candidate to provide summaries of student course evaluations and the FEC will in addition solicit evaluations from students and faculty. Relevant teaching materials would include but not be limited to: a. Student questionnaires constructed by the teacher and tailored for
the courses.
3. Service Service includes service to the Department and to the programs within it, service to the University, service to the scientific community of psychologists and service to the community. For purposes of faculty evaluation, service to the scientific community is considered most important since this reflects on an individual's professional reputation and scholarship. Similarly, extraordinary service of a demanding nature to the Department, College or the University will enter into the evaluation of faculty. Examples of this are election as College or University Faculty Senate president, chairing important Department, College, or University committees, etc. Regardless of its demanding nature, service is not a substitute for teaching and research. Nevertheless, habitual avoidance of service commitments may be cause for not being recommended for promotion and tenure. Community service is commendable, but except as it reflects on an individual's professional competence it will not be considered as supportive of promotion or tenure decisions. Again, it is necessary to get evidence about all of the faculty member's service contributions, rather than simply asserting that he or she is (or isn't) a helpful, cooperative colleague.
In addition to evidence of continuation of significant development and achievement with respect to the criteria listed for promotion to associate professor, an individual desiring to be promoted to full professor must be shown to have become a highly visible scholar in his or her area of specialization, and it must be shown that this judgment is shared by scientific colleagues outside the University. Evidence of such a reputation will be obtained from the following: 1. Solicited peer evaluations Every dossier will include at least six outside peer reviews obtained as described in the Procedures section. These reviews will be written by individuals with established reputations in the candidate's field. These statements will analyze and evaluate critically the candidate's work and accomplishments and may compare them to others in the field who are at a comparable level. 2. Unsolicited peer evaluations Examples of unsolicited peer evaluations would be: a) articles citing the individual's work and the reasons for its importance; b) prestigious extramural grants; c) reviews of books, particularly when the reviews are in depth; d) reprinting of articles or parts of books in collections of distinguished contributions to a subject; e) invitations to speak at prestigious scholarly meetings and conferences, both national and international in scope; f) invitations to contribute chapters to books edited by established scholars in one's field (publications in which an author publishes his own and others' works without the benefit of outside reviewers' evaluations do not constitute a scholarly publication); g) data from the Science and the Social Science Citation Index relevant to the impact of an individual's work; h) leadership positions in scientific societies; i) significant editorial responsibilities (e.g., Editorships) for respected scholarly publications; j) substantial involvement in national grant review processes; k) invitations to participate in other peer-review processes such as program or departmental evaluations. These activities each provide testimony to a person’s competence and reputation and bring valued visibility to the candidate him or herself, to the department and to the University of Delaware. III. FINAL STATEMENT The Department will act in such a way in matters of promotion and tenure
as not to violate the written policies of the University and University
Senate, to which such actions are subject. |